


Lost Things

by autobotscoutriella



Series: Purimgifts: ATLA/LOK [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bloodbending (Avatar), Character Study, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen, Hama does like her angry italics, Post-Canon, ish, so many italics in this one I had to edit a few out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22978141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autobotscoutriella/pseuds/autobotscoutriella
Summary: Why did you stay in the Fire Nation?Two months after the events of "The Puppetmaster", Hama considers her choices and her fate.
Series: Purimgifts: ATLA/LOK [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668616
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	Lost Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/gifts).



_Why did you stay in the Fire Nation?_

It had been two months since that awful, awful night, and the question still haunted her.

The air hung hot and still and dry, all humidity sucked out of the air by the sheer heat of the day. It tasted like metal and dust, and somewhere in the distance she could smell wood burning. There was _always_ something burning here, though who could possibly need a fire in this temperature was beyond her.

Hama stared dully at the cell bars, black metal standing out against dry dead wood. This prison was better than her first, but not by much; it was on the ground, and her arms had been left free, but it was all metal and wood and rock, without a hint of liquid in sight. There were no rats here, or any other animals for that matter. The only living creatures she saw were the guards, when they brought her food, and they were Fire Nation, not exactly the company she _wanted_ to keep.

There would be no escape from this place, not like the last one. She had tried to draw water from the air, from her own skin, from the meager cup they brought her daily, and had failed each time. Somehow, she had found herself unable to keep her eyes open at the last full moon, much less bloodbend. She suspected her food was being drugged, but it went beyond that.

_Why did you stay in the Fire Nation?_

“Maybe I should have left.” She had fallen back into old habits of talking to herself. It wasn’t as if her guards were going to talk to her, but they had no motivation to keep her silent. There were no other waterbenders here. “Maybe that’s what happened to my bending. I’ve been away from the South Pole too long, and this cursed place took my strength.”

If that were true, then she would have lost it long ago, when she was imprisoned the first time. No, she was strong enough to take her revenge for years. Something changed two months ago, and not before.

Maybe it was the act of _teaching_ bloodbending that had taken her strength. In the process of passing it on, and having her student _turn on her_ —

She felt her teeth grinding, her nails digging into her palms until they broke skin. “That’s why. She _betrayed_ me, and it _took_ something from me.”

Nothing answered, of course. A touch of disappointment trickled down her spine anyway, as if she had subconsciously expected _some_ response from the world around her. She had been betrayed, by the one person who should have understood her cause—it made her whole body tense with rage and left fury welling up in her throat. It seemed almost unfair that the rest of the world went on as before.

Despite the loss of her strength and whatever drug the guards were giving her, she could still feel the moment each night when the sun dropped below the horizon. She felt better at night, even in prison where she couldn’t see the moon.

She would never see the moon again. Her guards had made that clear.

_Why did you stay in the Fire Nation?_

“Because I deserved my revenge.” She forced herself to unclench her fists, noticing she had left marks in both palms. When had her skin become so fragile?

Probably when she had gotten old, she thought sardonically. Or maybe it was a side effect of losing her bending strength.

The door scraped open, and her head jerked up almost involuntarily. The guards never entered her cell block unless they had to, and her food and water had been brought for the day hours ago. So who…?

One of her guards, a very young woman who barely looked old enough to be out of her home alone, closed the door carefully behind her and approached the cell with a hesitation more suited for approaching a rabid platypus bear. Hama smirked in spite of herself. Whatever troubles she was having with her bending, her guards clearly still feared her. That was more than she had ever gotten in her first prison.

“I brought you some water.” The woman—girl, really—sounded as nervous as she looked, but the hand that held a small cup toward the bars was perfectly steady.

Hama raised a skeptical eyebrow. “ _Why_?” Maybe it was an attempt to make sure she was fully drugged before the full moon. They hadn’t done it last time, but she wouldn’t put anything past the Fire Nation.

The girl swallowed before speaking, but still made eye contact. “Because it’s scorching hot out, and it’s not going to cool down overnight. It’s cruel to dehydrate an old woman on a day like this.”

Hama snorted in utter disbelief, but accepted the water anyway. It was lukewarm, but under the conditions, it tasted ice cold. “Cruel never stopped the Fire Nation before,” she snapped, once the water was gone.

“Well, I wasn’t involved in that.” The girl grabbed the cup back before Hama could scornfully toss it at her feet, as she’d managed to a few times before. “I’m not like them. And more importantly, I’m not like _you._ ”

Before Hama could think of a reply to that, the girl was gone, closing the cell block door behind her, and she was once again alone with her thoughts.

_I’m not like you._

“Of course you aren’t,” she muttered. “You’re _Fire Nation._ ”

But the phrase lingered in the back of her mind long into the night, well after she should have been trying to sleep.

_Why did you stay in the Fire Nation?_

She would never admit it out loud to herself. She hated even thinking it, but once it came to mind, it wouldn’t go away.

_Because I became something else here, and I can’t ever go home._


End file.
